This is an Alfa Romeo 166. No, really. This car, called the Trumpchi, is owned by Chinese automaker GAC, and uses an Alfa platform. Apparently it’s a 4WD Hybrid as well. It looks utterly generic and about a decade behind the rest of the competizione…err, competition.

agreed. if low beltlines and rear window visibility are your thing then this may offer an option. potential reliability? tough to say. availability of parts? tough to say. but if it comes cheaply then it may sell. if it has the reliability of some of the cars from a decade ago then it may not be all that bad.

This car was actually not in the show. This was the hallway out front. Though it was next to a company selling four-wheelers that turn into jet skis… which was awesome. When I talked to a rep from the company he spoke broken English but kept saying it has all-wheel drive. I mentioned it looked a little like a Honda Accord he said, “What is Honda?” Really dude? Don’t act like you don’t know what Honda is when someone points out the parts that are a direct rip off. Nice car though.

Lest some go away thinking that this was GAC’s only entry at Detroit this year, I’m told that there were two other models displayed. One of these was the E-Jet hybrid concept…..worth checking out.
btw Geely, in its first appearance at Cobo, was also relegated to the vestibule. Space is very limited, or maybe some planning further in advance by such random participants would be good.

It certainly helped to show up at the same time as the Yugo (and possibly the Sterling). I’m pretty sure there was a junkyard find within the last couple of years that showed one high-mile (early) Excel.

Understandable. Inevitably in the future, this POS will be sold here thanks to solid efforts by the best marketing firms in the business, just like the POS Chinese tools and equipment sold at Home Depot and Walmart. By then, just like with the tools sold in those stores, it will be expected that in return for lower price we get an inferior product that has rather limited lifespan. The mentality will move even more towards “I don’t care if this fridge falls apart in 3 years, I saved enough money to buy a new one then. More metal will be processed, more factories will burn fuels to process it, etc. etc. etc.

Who wrote this and how do they still have a job?
1) Where in the article does the information reflect the title? Why not title it “American GDP as discussed by baseball legend Chipper Jones” It would have had the same relevance. Of course it probably should have been “Here’s a picture of an asian car!” That would have been accurate to the content. The exclamation point is so that your readers have something to comment about.
2) Why did the author pressume that a current model Asian market car could reflect a future model North American market car from a European company?
3) There’s so little information about the car, about Alfa’s US market plans, about anything, that this whole article could have been the caption of the picture. At least then, the author would have been forced to actually write something.

Yeah, some actual information would be nice. Just how much of the original Alfa 166 is used, for instance. It doesn’t look anything like the 166. The filler cap is in the same place. And they are both round. That is about it.

In DK’s defence – information on Trumpchi GA5 Sedan from Guangzhou Auto (GAC) is quite scarce. Here are some picture galleries that I found:

http://chinaautoweb.com/car-models/gac-trumpchi/

http://db.auto.sohu.com/model_2967/

The specifications say that it comes with a 1.8 or 2.0 DOHC 16V I4, but with only 108kW I doubt that it is a Twin-Spark. No word about any Alfa V6, which has always been the best part of any car that is fitted into.